About this tale

Part 2 of 3

What if bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow escaped alive from their run-in with law enforcement officers in Bienville Parish on May 23, 1934? That's the premise of a new novel, "Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road," by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall of Portland, Oregon. Today, we publish a second excerpt, a third to come Tuesday.

Today's scene is from early in the book when the young Bonnie and Clyde regain consciousness after being kidnapped by a shadowy government organization. The year is 1934.

“Have you heard the news?” the woman asked. “The infamous Bonnie and Clyde are dead. Gunned down in an ambush. Cut to pieces by four Texas Rangers with Tommy guns.”

She tossed a thick, folded newspaper—a copy of the Dallas Morning News—onto the plain metal table in front of two shackled prisoners, a man and a woman.

“Can you both read?” she asked. “Allow me: ‘Posse kills Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow,’” she said, reading the headlines upside down. “‘Elusive Dallas desperadoes shot to death in Louisiana.’ The pictures really do you justice. You look—I don’t know—taller,” she said to Clyde. “And prettier,” she said to Bonnie.

Clyde bristled and tugged at the handcuffs. His eyes were heavy, his thoughts slow to form. He looked over at Bonnie, and she shrugged helplessly. He’d never seen her look anything less than certain before, even when things were going to hell.

“With so many bullets, your bodies are barely recognizable,” the woman said.

The photographs showed two bloodied corpses. A man and a woman. The bodies were spread carelessly across a greasy wooden floor. An army of excited gawkers looked through a storefront, palms pressed against the glass.

“They may be dead ringers for us, but we obviously ain’t dead,” Clyde said.

“I am the only person in the world right now who knows that to be true,” the woman said. “Take a moment and let the implications of that fact sink in.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Like one of them gag papers or something?” Clyde asked, his voice rising.

“I assure you it’s no joke,” the woman said. “In fact, this may be the most important few minutes of your sorry lives. You get to decide whether you’re really dead, like the papers say, or if you live.”

“Why are we even talking?” Clyde asked. “We killed people. Cops and regular people. We’re guilty as sin and you got us dead to rights.”

Clyde tried to make out where they were. The room was nearly dark. There were no windows, so maybe it was night. It felt damp and smelled like old dirt, used-up engine oil, and onions—a cellar maybe.

“If we didn’t think you were useful, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” the woman said.

“What do you mean, useful?” Bonnie asked, the fire returning to her eyes. The last thing she remembered was being pulled out of the car.

“Ah, so the notorious Bonnie Parker has a voice,” the woman said. “I was starting to worry that maybe your vocal chords were broken.”

“I wish my ears were broken so I didn’t have to listen to you yammering on,” Bonnie said.

The woman pulled up a splintered wooden chair and sat down facing them.

“You were a big slap in the face to the bullies trying to take over the whole damn country and ruin it for everyone except them and their cronies. We always knew it was going to end in a violent death—yours, I mean—but until then, you provided a level of excitement that made the fat cats nervous. But when you started killing cops, the story got away from us.”

“Who exactly is the ‘we’ in your story?” Bonnie asked, struggling to make sense of the rapid-fire words coming from this woman’s mouth.

“That’s not your concern. What is your concern is what we could possibly see in a couple of incorrigible lowlifes that would cause us to go to such great lengths to pluck you out of the very mouth of hell and put you in this room.”

“That was gonna be my next question,” Clyde said. “Maybe not in them exact words.”

“You probably wouldn’t have said ‘incorrigible,’ for one,” Bonnie said, amplifying Clyde’s bravado out of instinct. And habit.

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The Shreveport Times, May 24, 1934.(Photo: Copyright 1996 The Times Shreveport)

“Turns out you’re pretty good at staying alive and getting out of tight spots,” she said.

“Or maybe it’s dumb luck. Guess we’re about to find out. Your little crime spree ended two days ago. Now it’s time to give back and help this country of ours stay on track.”

“Fat chance, lady,” Clyde said. “We ain’t never gonna help the law.”

“Oh, I think you will,” she said, leaning back in the chair. “You’re about to earn your lives back.”

“Yeah, what makes you think that?” Bonnie asked, her head finally clearing.

Later, Bonnie and Clyde still don’t believe that their deaths have been faked, but they are going along with what they think is a “con” until they can figure it out. In this scene, still in 1934, Bonnie and Clyde are getting cleaned up after weeks on the road.

The woman looked at Bonnie critically. Before the bath, she had cropped Bonnie’s hair short and dyed it blonde.

“I don’t think even your mother would recognize you,” the woman said.

“That’s a mean thing to say,” Bonnie said. “What’s your name, honey?”

The woman ignored her question. “The clothes on that chair are for you. Put them on—everything but the stockings. Don’t try anything or I’ll kill you. There’s nowhere to run. The door’s locked from the outside.”

“I’ve got to call you something,” Bonnie said, pulling on thick undergarments, a camisole, and then a plaid skirt.

“Call me Suicide Sal,” the woman said with a tight smile.

“That’s from my poem,” Bonnie said. “How do you know about that?”

“We know everything about you. Now get the rest of your clothes on. I’m tired of looking at your bony behind.”

“Plain clothes for a gangster moll,” Bonnie said, buttoning the white blouse close up to her throat as she examined her reflection in the shattered and dusty mirror leaning against the wall. “I hardly even recognize myself,” she said.

She looked like a schoolgirl, young and innocent—only one who had seen and done a hundred terrible things.

“That’s the point. By the way, your new name is Brenda Prentiss.”

“That’s real creative. Where’s Clyde?”

“You mean Clarence Prentiss,” she said. “He’s going through his own transformation.”

Sal looked at Bonnie, wondering if she would regret the words about to come out of her mouth.

“You should probably be a lot more afraid about what’s happening to you. Why aren’t you pitching a fit?”

“If you really knew everything about us, you’d know we tend not to overthink things,” Bonnie said. “We just take all the crap life throws at us and throw some back when we can.”

“Somehow I suspect that might be more Clyde’s way of living than yours,” Sal said. “That maybe you’re going along with the lowest common denominator because it’s easier.”

“That’s none of your business,” Bonnie said.

“Everything is my business now,” Sal said. “I own you both.”

A bolt scraped across the wood frame, and the door opened. Carl, a good twelve inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than his prisoner, pushed Clyde forward into the room. Clyde was shackled at the wrists and ankles.

“Bonnie, you okay?” Clyde asked, shuffling forward.

“Yeah, baby,” she said.

His black hair was cut short in a military style, buzzed close to his head, and he wore a new gray suit that fit him well. His shoes were polished to a dazzling gleam. She’d never seen him look so fine, and when he smiled wide, relieved to see her, she felt a little dizzy. Despite the crazy circumstances, a ball of electricity was creeping up and down the small of her back.

Clyde looked Bonnie over. “Lady, I don’t know who you are, but you’re damn near as good-looking as my number-one gal, Bonnie,” he said.